IN QUEER STREET

Edinburgh: W. Green & Son, Limited, 1932. First edition. Very good plus in very good minus jacket.. Association copy first printing of this collection of essays on murderers and others, from the personal library of fellow true-crime pioneer Jonathan Goodman. Criminal biographies both historical and contemporary from the erudite amateur criminologist and venerable murder-raconteur, published the year after the onetime owner of this copy and fellow murder-enthusiast Jonathan Goodman was born. Goodman, once called the "greatest living master of true-crime literature" by Jacques Barzun, followed Roughhead in narrating notorious criminal cases and enlivening trial transcripts with extravagant and stylish prose. In the 1970s, he became editor of the Celebrated Trials series, successor to the Notable Scottish Trials series once under Roughead's own direction.
Roughead's engaging preface includes a modest apology for failing to find a more original name for these collected narratives; his first such book was published in 1901, and so prolific was his output over the next half-century that in future years publishers would fall back on such titles as MAINLY MURDER, MURDER AND MORE MURDER, THE ENJOYMENT OF MURDER, THE ART OF MURDER, THE MURDERER'S COMPANION, and NOTHING BUT MURDER. One must admire a man who knew so well what he liked and liked it so very well. Still, Roughead was a man of dimensions: no more than four (five, at the very most) of the seven crimes recounted in IN QUEER STREET involve homicide.
A significant association copy linking two giants of the disreputable and deprecated but undeniably compelling genre, in the scarce and striking dust jacket. 8.75'' x 6''. Original gilt-lettered brown cloth. In original green pictorial dust jacket. Illustrated with eight black and white plates, including frontispiece. 259, [1] pages. Embossed stamp of the library of Jonathan Goodman to front free endpaper. Light edgewear and bumping to boards. Jacket scuffed and chipped with some loss to spine ends; 2-inch square clipped from front jacket flap; moderate soil and toning to rear panel.